I saw the acclaimed play Leopoldstadt at a Wednesday evening performance. Typically, when I attend Broadway performances, I favor musicals, but I'd read positive reviews about this play by the award-winning British playwright Tom Stoppard, so I found an inexpensive ticket online for a weekday evening.

Going solo, I ran into a couple I've known for years, Eileen and Charles, and we talked before the curtain rose. But I was glad to see this play on my own, squirreled away in a seat near the end of row A in the balcony because it was not a cheery show where you can sing along with your buddies. 

The play runs a bit over two hours without an intermission. This ensemble piece covers the lives of a Viennese Jewish family, with snapshot scenes from 1899, 1900, 1924, 1938, and 1955. There is tension early on, with members of the family who embrace their Jewish identity and others who convert to Christianity in order to assimilate better. We watch as the family balances Christmas and Hanukkah, bris ceremonies (circumcisions) and Passover seders, and discussions of Zionism, mathematics, culture and more.

The family members discuss identity on several levels: Jewish versus non-Jewish, socio-political affiliations, and feeling part of the greater society versus the tribal pulls of Judaism. The family members are doctors and businessmen, professors, and pianists. They are privileged and yearn to feel and celebrate this, but they are constantly reminded that they belong to a long-persecuted group, the Jews.

The first three year-scenes have their ups and downs, but 1938 takes place during the horrors of Kristallnacht as the family members huddle in their cold living room. They hear the smashing of glass and chants from blood-thirsty crowds outside. Then they are forced to allow inside two Nazis, who belittle them non-stop. In this chilling scene, in which the children are referred to as "spawn," the adults are constantly insulted and worse, building to the conclusion in 1955.

That final scene features just three adults: one who survived because she lived in the US, one who survived the Nazi death camps, and one who had been fortunate enough to move to England when a boy. When the American relative tersely relates the awful fates of family members ("Bella? Auschwitz. Mimi? Auschwitz.") it delivers a gut punch.

This play is somewhat autobiographical for Stoppard, who left Czechoslovakia as a little boy, had his surname changed, and didn't find out much about the fates of his Jewish relatives until later in life. There are bits and pieces of Hebrew and Yiddish scattered throughout the play. 

With the rise of antisemitism around the world and even in the US, Leopoldstadt resonates deeply. My acquaintances Eileen and Charles are both Jewish (we first met through our daughters), and after the show, Charles told me, "That was heavy," and he shook his head. Yes, it was. Will awful trends of history repeat themselves? 

Let's confront antisemitism and defeat it. Rise above. Remember.